the truth amongst his lies
by InsanityRunsInMyBlood
Summary: He is a coward, saying those three words after her death. Spoilers for season 5 (?). Canon settings but with angsty Mergana.


**I had told myself to lay off writing _anything_ for Merlin, but it seems I have lost the battle. The feels wrecked me like a tsunami. I had to do this.**

* * *

It's pain. Utter and inconsolable pain, clambering up behind her silently, Excalibur held in his cold, firm hand. He hears her taunts, and sees Arthur's impassive face marred only by the sweat and lines born of battle and death.

"No," he speaks in a low tone, "the time for all this bloodshed is over." He said, raising the sword. "I blame myself for you've become."

And perhaps, out of all the truths he has ever told (insignificant compared to the intricate web of lies he had woven), this was the truest one. The one that hurt the most, that drove a shard of ice deep into the frayed fragments of his heart.

She turns, bruised and battered. Her clothes hang on her in torn, tattered pieces, and her dark hair halos her pale, dirtied face.

She looks like an angel of death.

"But this has to end."

She looks at him, and somehow he still feels so worthless, so small under her defiant gaze. He can see the pain and sorrow in her pale emerald eyes, covered by a murky film of hatred and anger. Something inside of him shed tears he could no longer find, crying out for the woman in front of him.

_You could have saved her! She could have been something great!_

She opens her mouth.

"I am a High Priestess, no mortal blade can kill me."

Before the last syllable tumbles out of her lips, he drives the sword forward as if desperate to prove her wrong. The blade forged in a dragon's breath slides through her easily, drawing a shocked gasp from her. Merlin half expected something to happen, but she merely chokes on the pain, whimpering in his arms.

She looks at him with disbelief and incomprehension in her eyes, and Merlin feels detached—deathly calm.

The small, irrational part of him screams at him, struggling to crack his emotionless expression. He quashes it ruthlessly, offering her a cold explanation instead. It was the least he could do to answer her last, unspoken question.

"This is no mortal blade," he says hollowly, "Like yours, it was forged in a dragon's breath."

Understanding dawns in her eyes, and they clear. He sees the pain paving a path forward and clawing his shattered soul. The accusations of betrayal, desperation, and everything unsaid flies between them as she struggles to breathe. He thrusts the sword in further if only to bring her closer to him. She was nestled in his arms, and he was reminded of the first time he had done this.

Both times he had made attempts on her life.

The only difference was he would not save her this time. Not anymore.

She had caused so much pain to him and all he loved in Camelot and beyond. Why wasn't he rejoicing at the prospect of her life fading away?

The movement causes her to crumple. Her beautiful face twists with pain and she shuts her eyes, drawing in quick, burning breaths. He followed her fall, lowering her onto the ground gently. He could not bear to just let her drop. She had always been a graceful in life, so he would grant her a graceful death.

Another lie, forged to alleviate his agony. There was nothing graceful about her imminent demise. It wasn't grand, it wasn't honourable—it was a blessing for a broken woman searching for something she never had.

He leans over her form lying amongst the dirt and fallen leaves. Her eyes are already glazed, looking straight at him, but also gazing at something far away and beyond his reach.

"Goodbye Morgana," he says clearly, his voice empty of any emotion, and eyes void of pain. Her eyes focus for one second, crystal clarity piercing him. She strains to speak, her voice shaky and broken, but she could only release a small rasp. He sees the despair and acceptance enter her eyes briefly before they cloud over again. Her body relaxes, and she draws a final, shuddering breath. When she releases it, he could see something in her that he hasn't seen in years.

Peace.

He refrains from looking at her any further, blocking anything he might feel, and strode over to Arthur, noting the wounded King's listless expression. As he slings Arthur's arm across his shoulder, he could see the blonde man's head loll forward to look at his sister. When he finally looks at Arthur, he could see a small smile on the man's lips.

"You've brought peace at last." Arthur says.

He nods. "Arthur," he croaks. He knew that Arthur was going to die, that they were never going to reach Avalon in time. "Come on, we have to make it to the lake," his mouth moves mechanically on its own. Yet another empty lie. The final conversation between the two of them chafes him, burns him, tears at him, and leaves him sobbing at the shore of the lake, mourning the death of his greatest friend.

Fulfilling his destiny had cost him everything. He would sacrifice his body, mind, and soul for Arthur and Camelot, and he nearly did, but even that was not enough. For it may be that he is willing to give everything for Arthur, he could not give him the one thing the King needs to keep his complete loyalty—his heart. His heart and his mind have warred for too long, and the internal battle had cost him deeply. It had cost him the very people he tried to save.

He _would_ give everything for Arthur, but never his heart, for he cannot give something he does not own.

He _would_ give Arthur his heart without even thinking, but he cannot.

For his heart had been stolen from him a long time ago, and he had never gotten it back.

His feet take him back to the spot under the tree where her body lies, and he looks into her eyes one last time, seeing nothing but emptiness.

Finally, finally, moisture blurs his vision. He smooths a palm over her eyes gently, and he desperately wants to believe she is just sleeping.

Too still, too still, he knows she's gone.

"I love you, Morgana."

It was the last truth he would tell for a long time to come.


End file.
